NBN Co blocks FOI request: reputations at stake

By Ben Butler, Lucy Battersby

Government-owned broadband builder NBN Co claims the reputations of its directors could be damaged if it revealed which of them turned up to a September board meeting.

Freedom-of-information expert Peter Timmins said NBN Co's claim was ''speculative, ridiculous and without foundation'' and there were signs a culture of secrecy was spreading through Canberra.

Fairfax Media requested the minutes of the September 20 meeting to discover how the directors reacted to being asked to resign by Malcolm Turnbul.Credit:Rob Homer

NBN Co FOI officer David Mesman made the claim in a decision denying Fairfax Media access to minutes of the meeting.

''If NBN Co were to publish a director's attendance, it could also damage a given director's personal reputation and ability to sit on other boards,'' Mr Mesman said.

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He said some board members had objected to releasing the information.

''Based on these objections and the above points, this could negatively impact on NBN Co's ability to attract top-level directors,'' Mr Mesman said.

This could in turn affect NBN Co's commercial activities, particularly because ''NBN Co is in a transition period, both at a corporate and board level''.

Fairfax Media requested the minutes of the September 20 meeting to discover how the directors reacted to being asked to resign by incoming Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull. In the week before the meeting, Mr Turnbull asked all but two directors to fall on their swords.

All did so except former UBS Australia head Brad Orgill, whom Mr Turnbull subsequently sacked.

NBN Co was brought under the freedom-of-information umbrella in 2011 by the former Labor government, with then infrastructure minister Anthony Albanese telling Parliament ''a wide range of information is likely to be accessible''.

Mr Turnbull, who was the Opposition communications spokesman st the time, said the new rules were a con because they contained an exemption for commercial activities.

Mr Timmins, a lawyer who specialises in FOI litigation, said Mr Mesman's arguments were ''all in all a confused and confusing set of words that suggest a really big effort to dream up something to put on paper but in the end are unpersuasive''.

He described as ridiculous another part of Mr Mesman's decision that refused access to the names of staff and third parties present at the meeting because it might reveal commercial activities.

And refusing to disclose information about directors' conflicts of interest on the same basis was ''at the very least a long, long bow''.

Federal FOI laws were changed in 2010 to make it harder for the government to refuse access to information.

However, Mr Timmins said there was anecdotal evidence a crackdown was under way.

''On FOI generally an early ill wind seems to be whipping through Canberra,'' Mr Timmins said.

Last month Treasury official Denise Geraghty told Fairfax Media there was little public interest in releasing the Foreign Investment Review Board's 37-page report to Treasurer Joe Hockey on the proposed takeover of GrainCorp by US company Archer Daniels Midland.

Mr Hockey rejected the $3.4 billion bid in late November, and revealed FIRB members were split on the merits of the deal.

Also last month, Airservices Australia legal counsel Kate Stewart refused Fairfax Media access to the flight records of a private jet. The release of such records under FOI rules has in the past been a routine matter.